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Eww, You Might Want To Stop Reusing Your Bath Towels

Listen, I know you already have a shit ton of stuff to do and keep track of. And I’m positive the hell known as doing laundry brings you to your knees and makes you want to lie on the floor and throw a temper tantrum 3-year-old style. I feel the exact same way.

There is nothing that makes me feel like servant-bitch more than looking at a pile of laundry waiting to be washed, dried, and folded — because it never ends.

Since we’re all on the same page about how much we hate laundry, it feels wrong to let you know you probably aren’t doing enough of it. Sorry.

According to an article in Time magazine, towels should be washed every two days. I know, you bought the dark ones so stains and dirt won’t show up quite so easily; I did the same. This trick was supposed to make our lives easier, right?

You do not simply use a towel one time. That is blasphemy.

The thing is, those towels are crawling with bacteria. The study conducted by Charles Gerba, a microbiologist at the University of Arizona, found coliform (bacteria found in human feces) in 90% of bathroom towels and E. coli in 14% of bathroom towels.

BARF.

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Those fuckers are nasty whether we can actually see the evidence or not. And we can all confirm sharing towels with our kiddos elevates the disgusting factor. To them, it’s not a piece of cloth for wiping off their freshly scrubbed body parts. No, they are also booger catchers, work well for cleaning up pee off the floor, and are a good place to store scabs and poop specs.

Just the other day, I caught my 10-year-old son wiping some experiment juice up off the floor (I literally have no idea what it was). Then he proceeded to hang the towel over the sink where it is kept. He knows better. I’ve told all my kids several times over that the towel over the kitchen sink is for wiping your very clean hands only. I change it every day, but after witnessing such horror, I think it’s time to burn all my towels and just not have any until my kids move out.

Sorry, environment. Paper towels for everybody.

I hate laundry, but I hate the thought of wrapping myself up in something that’s been peppered with fecal matter after emerging from a steaming hot shower even more. Please pass the Tide. And the bleach.

Fluffy, soft towels are supposed to feel like hugs and unicorn kisses. Those hugs are laced with bacteria that like to chill in the loo. After all, bathrooms provide the perfect environment for that shit with their warm, damp climates. And now I want to throw all my towels away and force my family to drip-dry.

I mean, E Coli. Ugh.

The good news: Even though your towels are crawling with germs, it probably won’t physically harm you. Emily Martin, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, shed some light on the subject and told Time that even if we come into contact with the bacteria, we will be fine. “Our bodies are adapted to being able to live in this environment with all of these microbes around,” Martin says.

While we may not get sick, we could risk infection if any bacteria gets into an open cut or wound. So when you cut your leg shaving in the shower, maybe don’t dry that area off unless you know you towels are free of poop particles.

So stock up on some extra laundry detergent, fall in love with washing clothes, or invest in an industrial-sized fan for your bathroom and tell your family to dry off with that, and avoid this whole shitshow altogether. Or just rejoice in the fact that the shit (probably) won’t make you sick and pretend you never heard any of this.